sykerocker 

Looking at that bike brings back memories of John D'Angelo's bike shop in Erie, PA back during the Bike Boom. He had Fuji and Atala, and when the first Finest arrived, it absolutely stunned everybody. Back then a 531 double butted frame bike with Campagnolo would normally sell for $400-450 (the higher price included Campagnolo brakes), and the Fuji shows up with better finish on everything other than a Paramount or Raleigh Professional and equal performance for $285.00. I seem to remember a Gitane Tour de France only costing about $10.00 less, and it had nowhere near the finish of the Fuji.

Finally got one of my own, in white, back around 2009. Unfortunately, it was badly weather beaten when I got it, and while it rode really well and was complete, there was no way I could get it cosmetically as nice as your example. Kept it until 2014, it was one of the bikes that got sold off to help the move from Montpelier to Ashland, and the closing of the first shop. Would definitely love to get another one someday, but this time I'm holding out for a much more pristine example.

mkeller234

sykerocker 

It's interesting that, back in '71-73 Lambert was supposed to be the big magic bike coming on the market, while Fuji was the second Japanese brand (after Nishiki) to start appearing in the bike shops. By the end of '73, Lambert became the prime example of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"; while the Fuji Finest became THE big blow-away, jaw-dropping bicycle in the local market. About the only thing you could say against it is, "it doesn't have any Campagnolo" (said with the nose properly tilted into the air) . . . . . . . . . which is kinda funny in retrospect, because five years earlier, none of us in the PIBC had ever heard of Campagnolo. And we were all rapidly discovering that mid-line Sun Tour made Nuevo Record come off like overpriced trash. But for snob value . . . . . .

I'm in Ashland, VA: Fifteen miles north of downtown Richmond on I-95, and essentially the furthest suburb of Richmond.

rhm

The fork crown is puzzling. The fork blades look round, or am I seeing things?

mkeller234

dddd

And we shouldn't forget how all of the repeated propaganda coming from a few bike-boom book publications at the time affected the public's thinking.
Basically, they led people to believe that Campagnolo was still simply best among components, and that Schwinns with one-piece cranks were in the same quality-league as department-store bikes. It was like they perhaps had financial stakes in the imports segment or parts thereof.

I would work at a Fuji dealer in the late 1970's and the bikes there were hot sellers for good reason, though the customers weren't racers and the America and S-12S LTD were at the top of the heap among bikes sold there. I built up a standard S-12-S frame there for my own use after my Raleigh Super Course was stolen, and rode and commuted on that Fuji for years before selling it in 1986 (the year I bought a Trek 720 and a Cannondale R400 on Winter close-out for a total of $650).